I've written here before that Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo is my favorite single blogger. He presents today what I think is a correct analysis of this past week on Lieberman/Lamont. That, and my thoughts on DailyKos' obsession with this race as opposed to other Senate races, below the fold.
Josh
points out that Joe carried the upper hand in the first week of the general election campaign. This, I believe, is absolutely correct. The Q-poll was somewhat disappointing to me, and even if it turns out to be correct that the trend line toward Lamont matters more than the hard numbers in Quinnipiac's first post-primary poll, the fact is the poll helps Joe right now. Also helping Joe were the few high-profile Dems who continue to support him. Joe's open courting of the GOP by coopting their talking points on terrorism, Iraq, and Lamont is a mixed bag: it certainly helps cement his GOP support without hurting him short-term with Dems and indys, but a continuation of this could hurt him with Dems and indys down the road. But as with the Q-poll, the long-term trend doesn't matter for now, in the short run it provides a benefit. Meanwhile, Ned made a bad, bad move to go on vacation...it allowed Joe to dominate the narrative for the week. And Tom Swan's snide remark about Waterbury was an additional gaffe.
Some of this stuff was mitigated by Ned's excellent Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, as well as by the Dem establishment by and large giving Ned its formal blessing. Ned and Tom Swan did some decent work with their public statements tying Joe's position to Bush et al., but as noted above Joe's parroting the Gooper line was helpful to him in the short run. Bill Clinton's public cutdown of Lieberman was a HUGE benefit and may help longer term since, coming from a recent Dem President, it's something easy to get re-printed as the weeks go by.
All in all, despite my fierce pro-Lamont and anti-Lieberman sentiments, Joe "won" the first round of the general election fight, if each week may be called a "round."
And now, a word to those who complain there aren't enough diaries about other races: stop complaining and just write one! Do the research, find out what's going on, analyze it, and type it up! DailyKos is The People's blog, it's America's most successful because Markos minimizes his own role and empowers the general public to control the content here. Paraphrasing Gandhi, you must BE the change you want to see on DailyKos!
While I'm at it, I will add that I think we're going to win the Senate races in RI, PA, OH, MO, and MT. And I'm more hopeful than ever about Virginia with Allen playing defense and Rasmussen showing Webb down just 5. But Webb has got to get some coin banked to make it winnable. I was looking for a race to give some token money that might become pickup #6, and now I'm thinking I'll give Webb a contribution this weekend.